The Effect of Music Videos on College Students' Perceptions of Rape.

Abstract

This paper examined the effect of sexualized portrayals of female artists in music videos on college students' perceptions of date rape. 132 college students were randomly assigned to view a music video that contained either high or low levels of sexuality and sexual objectification and were then asked to rate the guilt of the male in a scenario they read about a date rape between a high school boy and girl. Generally, the high sexualized/objectified music video had a greater effect on males' perceptions, decreasing their judgments of guilt and empathy for the victim. Additionally, the females in the high sexualized/objectified condition were more likely to rate the female as responsible for the date rape. The results are discussed in terms of rape myths and sex role stereotypes. Keywords: music videos, rape, media influence ********** Young adults and adolescents are spending increasing amounts of time with various electronic media. This includes, but certainly is not limited to, social networking websites such as Facebook[R], video games, television shows, youtube[R] and music videos. Teens spend more time interacting with media than any single other waking activity (Roberts, 2000) and the predominant medium is television; subsequently much of the media research involving teens and young adults is about television viewing and music videos' influence have received relatively less research attention in comparison. This investigation aims to focus on this gap: how do music videos influence young adults' perceptions of sexual interactions, particularly ones with a violent component? Ward, Hansborough & Walker (2005) conducted one of the seminal studies on music videos' influence on teen behavior. They were specifically interested in the relationship between music videos and teens conceptions of masculinity and femininity. They conducted a two-pronged investigation. In the correlational component, they found that the more music video exposure teens had, the more sex-role stereotypes they endorsed. For example, those with more music video exposure were more likely to agree with beliefs such as men are more sex driven than women or women are objects for men's sexual needs. For the experimental component of the investigation, Ward et al exposed students to mainstream, commercially available music videos that either contained high levels of sex role stereotyping or low levels. The students who were exposed to the higher levels showed greater endorsement of sex roles stereotyping. It is important to note that the two groups were not significantly different in their media usage, thereby eliminating the possibility that this effect was simply a function of greater previous music video viewing experience in the high sex role stereotype group. Ward and her colleagues argue that this combined experimental and correlational illustration of both short term priming effects and long-term learned associations respectively offers powerful evidence of the potential contribution of music video exposure in shaping young viewers' beliefs about how women and men should look, act, and behave (2005, p. 159). Ward et al (2005) conducted their work with African American high school students and it is less well known how music videos are perceived by and their influence on young adults. Burgess, Dill & Wright (2008) found that college students believed that women are consistently portrayed in a derogatory and sexualized fashion in rap music videos. This belief is generally borne out by the examination of rap video content (Armstrong, 2003). It is tempting to think that music videos' poor portrayals of women are limited to this particularly notorious genre, given its frequent criticisms (e.g., Wingood et al, 2003), or to assume that at least female artists would be portrayed well in their own videos. However, Jhally (2007) has illustrated that women are rarely portrayed well in music videos, as artists or props. …

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